


Sky Gardens

by marstundra



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: ;), Anxiety Attacks, Drug Use, Eventual Vigilante MC, F/M, MCs magic is similar to Mantis' abilities, Magic User MC, Peter Parker X OC - Freeform, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Slow Burn MC X Peter, which may or may not play into the plot later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-23 19:57:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16625474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marstundra/pseuds/marstundra
Summary: Bethany Stephens (known as "beta" by her mom and close friends) spirals into depression and PTSD after a robbery that left her with a gunshot wound to the chest. She quits her job, starts homeschooling, and eventually loses herself in her studies to distract her from healthily coping with her trauma. She's even taking college classes before she turns 17.Peter Parker was told by a magic user after the robbery that he needs to look out for the young waitress that was almost killed, but all he has is a nickname and the place she definitely won't be returning to.The first time he finds her by accident, sitting on the roof ledge of her (presumably) apartment. He makes a habit of visiting her when she's up there; after all; the lady from the restaurant robbery told him to.He doesn't expect to see her anywhere else really, since she lives in Brooklyn, and he lives in Queens. Then she walks into his classroom as the "new student teacher".Of course, she has no idea who he is; he always wore a mask when she saw him, after all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yo this first chapter is the opposite of a slow burn it kinda just throws background context at you and then boom goes the catalyst for the whole fic. 
> 
> I hope the rest of the fic ends up making up for the whiplash this first chapter will give you. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks!  
> -Mars

Bethany Stephens was always aware of magic existing. 

Everyone knew about that one Avenger with the red cape who went by Doctor Strange, Thor with his magical lightning hammer, and Loki’s trickster mirages, and even Scarlet Witch with the ability to move objects with her mind. 

She had a sneaking suspicion there were more types of magic on Earth that she couldn’t even dream of; but could never guess where to find it. She had no need to, really. She was fine without the complications of magic in her life. She had no desire to become a hero. 

Too much responsibility. Too much pressure, by far. 

She was content with living her life in New York, going to a decent high school, and waiting tables part time. She was content living with her single mom, in a good neighborhood, never worrying too much about making ends meet.

Either way, Bethany never sought out magic to solve her problems; again: she didn’t have the need or desire to.

But when the opportunity to learn magic came in the form of a customer at her job, it’s not like she was going to _refuse_. 

...

 

It was her second week at her new job when she met Riley for the first time. She learned that her name was Riley on the third visit. Riley came once a week after the third visit, and always requested Bethany be her server.

Riley always brought a book with her when she came in. Always a really old looking book about magic. Riley liked talking about magic and sometimes the famous magic users like Scarlet Witch or Doctor Strange. 

Riley had a short curly bob cut going from brown to blond at the tips and she liked to always accessorize with dangly earrings with little circle beads that hang _just_ below the bob cut. She pulled off a septum piercing better than anyone else she knew. Riley was very pretty, and was just out of high school, running her own private business she started when she was 16 where she sold different types of herbal teas to soothe different people’s mental concerns. Whether is was stress, fatigue, insomnia, etc. Riley had a fix for it. 

Needless to say, Riley was pretty cool. She always ordered the same thing every time (chicken fingers with a side of honey mustard) and always tipped well(ten dollars). 

It was about a six months in when Riley invited Bethany to her apartment to brew up some teas. It went well, and they made it their saturday thing. Riley visited Bethany at work on Tuesdays, then Bethany would visit Riley on Saturdays. 

During one Saturday afternoon, Riley let Bethany in on her side hobby; something she dubbed, “tap magic”.

It was based from the idea of summoning magic from the soul, and using one’s fingertips as a bridge for magic to travel from one person to another. Riley said she’s delved into the healing side of tap magic; she can fully heal minor cuts and bruises so far, as well as minorly affect moods of individuals, with enough concentration. 

Riley offered to teach Bethany, and of course she was excited to dabble in _real_ magic. 

In terms of what “Tap Magic” is, it starts with being able to understand and manipulate a person’s soul’s energy. You have to start with your own soul and find the energy to use it and manifest it into doing whatever “action” you want it to do. By mentally controlling the energy you summon from your soul to do as you wish, you essentially become an electrical circuit to help make something work. 

It comes with limitations, as everything does. Exerting too much soul energy will cause fatigue, and in some cases, passing out; especially with inexperienced people, or too difficult a task. In the beginning stages of training, it’s very easy to hit your limit quickly; similar to exercising and working out.

When using this type of magic, the energy flowing through your fingertips to the other person’s body generally will glow a soft blue color, but with practice, you can tone down the pigmentation to nothing, for more practical and potentially less noticable results. Riley and Bethany realised that they can also use their powers at a short distance without having to touch their intended target, but this produces less powerful results because more mental power is used to project the energy farther. The same thing goes for controlling the pigment, because more energy is diverted from sending pure energy to the target. The most raw and powerful form is through immediate contact and letting the energy be it’s intended color.

Despite the less potent results, Bethany liked this feature because it allows her to use her abilities on guests at work that are less than thrilled when something happens; because she can just slightly gesture her hands to the customer while apologizing without having to touch them, _and_ not have the soul energy glow when it’s on the way to the problematic person. This results in a less pissed off guest, and better tips for Bethany. 

It might be a little selfish, but the world is always better with a little more positivity. 

When the new developments in their powers were discovered; like the controlling of the amount of pigmentation in soul energy and like the lack of touch needed to use the powers, Bethany and Riley made an agreement to not use their abilities to manipulate each other negatively or without consent, and also to not use them for illegal purposes. Even at this point, Riley’s girlfriend doesn’t know that Riley actually practices the magic she studies(mind you, they’ve only been dating for a month, and Riley said “Maybe I’ll tell her down the road, if we end up being more than a fling”). Bethany is still hesitant to tell her mom, because she doesn’t know how’d she’s react. They agreed not to tell anyone else, because neither of them really wanted to attract that kind of attention. Magic users aren’t that common(since real magic was hard to find and harder to harness) and when they are known about, they either: disappear, become Avengers, or get killed.

All of which resulting in an early death, which is _not_ on the agenda.

Bethany’s mom didn’t really notice her being gone for an extra two hours on those Saturdays because she was teaching college classes in the evening. Both Riley and Bethany progressed immensely in their studies, and it helped that Bethany was naturally attune to the type of magic and caught up to Bethany’s level of skill in only a few months. It took more mediation and patience than Bethany would’ve liked, but the end product was worth it. Bethany and Riley often practiced with each other because it was easier than waiting for the situation to arise whereas Riley would often wait and practice on herself when something happened or on others when they had no chance of noticing. Riley told Bethany of the time she helped her girlfriend calm down from an anxiety attack, and Bethany realised she could use her newfound abilities to help others without having to be a flashy hero like Iron Man or Captain America.

She’d be more okay with helping others on a smaller and more personal scale. 

This was happening for about another six months, up to the current date.

…

Waiting tables wasn’t always an easy task, contrary to popular belief. Bethany learned this when she turned 15 and started working at a mom and pop diner, Fizzy’s. It was a popular joint in Queens, very family friendly. She’d only been serving for 2 years know, but she felt like one of the stronger servers that worked there, despite her young age. She had a few regulars, and her tip averages were always high.

Bethany was in the middle of dinner rush, balancing the responsibilities of 3 parties of four, 2 parties of 5, a single diner, and an 11 top.

Needless to say, she was keeping busy.

The entire restaurant was filled, not even empty tables that needed bussing, because no one from this rush had left yet.

Her 2 coworkers were juggling with the same situation she was, and no one had time to cash people out at the register. A line of three people were waiting, and the first person looked pissed.

Bethany was in the middle of getting drinks for her latest table; 2 cokes and 2 waters; when she heard the man in from of the cash register yell in frustration at the busy cooks for not cashing him out, even though it wasn’t their job to do so. Bethany was glad that man wasn’t one of her tables, because he doesn’t exactly appear to want to wait and pay, much less leave a decent tip.

Bethany saw one of the other servers come into the server station while she filled up her last water. Her name was Claire; Bethany didn’t know her last name; and she had long blond hair brought back into a messy ponytail ; not messy by design, but messy through circumstances. She didn’t appear to be doing anything.

“Hey Claire,” Bethany started politely as she grabbed all the cups into her hands, “do you mind grabbing the register?”

Bethany checks for straws in her pocket before returning to the dining room of guests, passing Claire and hoping she’d do it.

Bethany’s walking to her table when she hears Claire say, “Sorry, can you please get it? That guy was mine and he was really rude to me.”

Bethany contemplates asking the newer server, Jess, if she can do it; but then looks out to see her running around the restaurant already trying to calm angry guests who have been waiting for a while to get their orders in. Jess was too busy to handle even one more thing.

“Ok,” Bethany says to herself and walks the last 2 yards to her table.

Her attitude does a 180 and she switches to her “polite server” voice, and pretends the rush isn’t happening.

“Alright, I have a couple waters,” she sets the waters down to their respective people. As she sets down drinks, she remembers that this table needed more time to look on the menu.

“And a couple Cokes,” she looks up from her guests and sees a family of 5 come in, three of them were kids. There was also another party of 3 and a party of 4 already waiting to be seated. 

She screams internally.

“And do we need another moment to decide?” She asks nicely, masking her frustration towards her coworkers and problematic guests with unbridled courtesies .

“Excuse me?!” Bethany whips her head around to see the middle aged man at the register slam his hand on the counter. Bethany is quiet, the whole restaurant goes quiet for a moment from surprise at the mans outburst.

“YOU KNOW WHAT? FUCK THIS, I’M NOT WAITING ANYMORE,” he makes a dramatic turn, “FUCK THIS PLACE.”

And then he walked out, slamming the door behind him.

Bethany flinches with the door slamming; but turns back to her table, “sorry about that, guys,” she says sincerely and calmly, and proceeds as if it didn’t happen, “did you say you were ready?”

She takes their order on her notepad and returns to the computer to put it in. She’s thankful for already having grabbed their drinks, because it’s one less thing to cross off the to do list. She gives her other tables a quick glance to check if they needed anything, but they appeared okay.

She gazed to the people waiting to be seated, “I’ll be with you in a moment, sorry about the wait,” she said as she made her way to the register to cash out the 2 people still waiting to be checked out; the ones in line after the angry man who left without paying. The first person wasn’t at any of her tables and checked out quickly and seemed only mildly annoyed about the wait to cash out.

Behind her was Riley, who was patient as always when situations like these come up. Bethany was glad to see a familiar friend and smiled when it was her turn to cash out. Riley was Bethany’s only single diner at the moment, and before the rush they had talked about the different type of tea that they’d think about having this coming Saturday. Riley was always trying out new tea recipes and after tea they would practice and perfect their skills in magic.

Riley smiled back at Bethany with sympathy.

“That man has some serious issues; couldn’t he see that you guys are busy?” Riley remarked sassily as she reached into her bag for her wallet.

Bethany tried to keep her composure, for the sake of other guests seeing, even though she felt the exact same way. Unfortunately Bethany didn’t have the time for more chit chat with her friend; she had tables to seat, more tables to check on, and food to drop off before it got cold in the window.

“I suppose he was having a bad day, he could use one of your tea’s- maybe even a swift tap of calmness or something; if that would even work on him. He was _pissed_ ,” Bethany looked at her dining room, “Sorry, Riley, but I really do need to get back to it. It’ll be the usual: nine fif-“ the front door burst open and three men in black gear and masks came stomping in, and she didn’t get the chance to finish because her ears were assaulted by the sound of gunshots. Bethany automatically ducked behind the counter, and tried to recuperate as her heart rate skyrocketed and her body began shaking in fear.

She was panicking so badly that the screaming coming from the guests and more and more gunshots popping off.

“EVERYBODY GET DOWN ON THE GROUND AND PUT YOUR WALLETS ON THE TABLES” Bethany heard one of them say.

Is Riley okay? Bethany didn’t get the chance to see.

Her first coherent thought was ‘I wish I was the angry guy that left. At least he doesn’t have to deal with this’.

She looked at the back of house and saw no one there; they probably left through the back door, hopefully their safe at least. Bethany was envious of the grill cooks for once in her life.

She was still crouched on the floor behind the register when she felt the barrel of an AR touch her head.

“Up,” the males voice says authoritatively. He was bending over the counter in an awkward position; a vulnerable state; and Bethany had a moment of clarity.

She breathed in and stopped the shaking in her hands and she slowly got up from her crouched state. She turned her head to the barrel of the gun, and that brought 50 percent of the fear back into her, but the moment the man with a black ski mask turned his gun slightly away from her, so he could rebalance himself, Bethany used one arm to grab the barrel of the gun and hold it far away from her face; while her other arm pulled the man forward over the counter and onto the floor. He was much heavier than she anticipated, and only the upper half of his body was over the edge of the counter, while his feet dangled over the bar. During the moment of contact that her hand had with his body, she used all her concentration to put the man out of commission by making him fall asleep. She had paid no attention to the pigmentation in soul energy, since she was more fearful for her life rather than other people around her knowing she was a magic user.

Due to Bethany’s lack of being one-hundred percent calm in the moment, her efforts were not fully effective. She managed to make him dizzy and confused; causing him to stumble over his own feet. He tried to regain his footing, but writhed fully over the edge of the bar instead, losing his grip on the gun in the process.

During this split second, the other two men looked over from their wallet stealing and hostage scaring antics to see their pal getting made a fool of. Bethany had not thought this through, and panicked. She still had the barrel of the AR in her hand, but she had no idea how to use it, in fact she only knew the vague name of the gun because of all the gun issues going on around America and in schools.

The man who fell over was trying to get up, and grabbed Bethany’s ankle to presumably push her over; but Bethany used her other hand to grip the barrel and she swung the gun at the man like a golf club almost. The man went limp, and Bethany’s moral compass would wonder later how badly she hurt this man.

Now fully standing, Bethany looked and saw her entire dining room with families and friends cowered in fear on the ground with the heads above their heads, or holding their families. She saw blood splatters on the floor, and a few abandoned bodies. She made brief eye contact with Riley, who appeared to be ok, just scared, though.

Both remaining men raise their guns and aim to shoot, and the taller one on the right makes a shot as he gets body slammed by a figure bursting in through the window next to him, coming through the window feet first, covered in red and blue.

Bethany has heard all about how people don’t notice when they get shot due to adrenaline pumping through their system; but Bethany wanted to call them out on their bullshit at that moment, because all she felt was hot, searing pain as the blow knocked her backwards and onto the floor. She screamed in pain, her body felt like it was on fire, she felt like her insides were ripped through like tissue paper. Every breath she took made her choke and tears stream from her eyes. Her vision of the ceiling blurred with tears, and she vaguely knew that the man she knocked out was right next to her, still unconscious.

Words dried up in her throat, everything stopped her from moving any more than she needed to. 

Her mind grew fuzzy; as well as the feeling in her limbs. She was only moderately thankful the the pain was becoming fuzzy along with any other physical feeling her had. Her coherent thoughts were ones of panic; it terrified her more than anything to not feel in control of her body. She couldn’t move.

_I can’t feel my body I can’t feel my body I can’t feel ANYTHING I’m so scared so scared scared of dying scared of dying someone help please help help please anyone help me-_

Her body was shaking, the blinding heat in her body having disappeared and since been replaced with an utter chill that couldn’t be helped.

She saw someone enter her vision. She couldn’t tell who it was. She knew she had to tell them; in case it would help. She stared where she thought the person’s eyes were.

_“I don’t want to die.”_

She doesn’t remember anything after that.


	2. Chapter 2

_20 minutes earlier_

Peter Parker ditched his backpack on a familiar alley wall courtesy of his handy wrist web slingers. He quickly jumped into his handmade red and blue suit, revelling in how it made him feel more formidable than his khaki pants and Midtown High sweater did. 

He’s officially been the wall crawler/ boy spider/ webby dude for about two months. He still doesn’t know what to call himself, and no one else knows what to call him. 

It doesn’t matter too much to him, so long as he’s helping people. 

His uncle’s death hit him hard last month, and being the _other guy_ helps take his mind off of the damaging thoughts that take over his mind when he has too much time to think. The busy side life of swinging around the city to capture muggers and stop small acts of terrorism in the city are what makes Peter’s life feel more important. He feels like it’s a start to help make up for being unable to help Uncle Ben.

Peter aims his wrist at a brick apartment building and lets himself be thrusted into the air. He smiles underneath his cotton made mask; he’s not sure if that’ll ever _not_ be his favorite thing about being the wall crawler. Swinging around the city and feeling the rush of air around him; being propelled by his own inventions; his will taking him wherever he wanted to go. 

_That_ feeling, and watching the relief wash over the people he’s saved. Those two things are what makes _any_ scratch or sprain worth it at the end of the day. 

It helps that his healing factor is relatively high, so anything that does happen to him usually heals before he’s back in bed by the end of the night, before Aunt May would notice. He’s been lucky to have not broken anything yet, but he’s also pretty convinced his bones have been made more resilient since the spider bite. Last week he stopped a speeding minivan with a passed out driver from crashing into the side of a bus with his his bare hands, something that no normal human could never do without breaking every bone in their body or without being crushed between the car and the bus.

So Peter swings through the city, stopping whenever he spots something he could help out with. He saw a man grab a woman’s purse in front of a corner store and run after pushing her over so she couldn’t follow. He makes it about 20 yards away before Peter drops from his webs and lands in front of the mugger on the sidewalk. There aren’t too many people frequenting this part of town, and even less cops.

The mugger, surprised someone popped out of nowhere, skitters to a stop, even though he towers over Peter in his suit. 

“Oh hey,” Peter quips, the size of the man unfazing, “Didn’t see you there-”

The muggers eyes harden as he tries to push past Peter, but Peter doesn’t budge. The mugger’s brows furrow.

“Get out of my way, kid,” He steels himself and runs around Peter, but Peter was one step ahead and webbed his feet together as he passes him; causing the mugger to fall flat on his face on the pavement. He kneels down and with one hand he takes the leather purple purse and with the other hand, he webs up the hands of the mugger, who was actively trying to get a punch in. 

“Screw you, damn wannabe hero,” he spits at Peter, “I’ll kick the shit out of you.”

“I dare you to try,” Peter tests, grabbing him by his collar with his free hand and setting the 200 pound man against a brick wall with more ease than should be possible. 

Peter chooses to web the man up against the wall with no chances of being able to move, and calls the incident in to the police. The person on the phone tells him they’ll be there in under ten minutes, and to stay there for the report. 

When he hangs up, the woman whose purse was stolen catches up, and up close, Peter notices she’s a lot older than he thought from in the air. He can tell up close that her hair is colored to hide the grey, and even though she doesn’t have too many wrinkles and doesn’t have too bad of posture; she’s definitely over 50. 

He automatically hands her the purse, and she pushes her cracked glasses up on her nose.

“Thank you, sir,” the woman pulls the purse over her shoulder.

“Happy to help, ma’am,” Peter nods, “The police are on their way to pick him up, they want statements though.”

The woman nods, but the mugger bound to the wall tries to bargain. 

“Please, sir, let me go, I can’t violate my parole, they’ll send me back to prison!” he strains against the webs, even though they show no signs of budging. 

This might be one of Peter’s least favorite part of the job; listening to criminals bargain as the cops come. The tough macho personalities threaten him, sometimes desperate personalities will beg for Peter to let them go. Depending on how insufferable and vulgar the criminal is, Peter webs over their mouth, but he tries to stay away from that. Peter always has to leave before the cops come, because the cops will ask for his identity, or depending on the situation; the cops will try to take _him_ in due to slight damages in property and similar instances; but he finds it polite to wait with victims until that help _does_ arrive. 

Peter makes small talk with the woman while they wait for police to arrive. She tells him her name is Teresa, and that she was grabbing groceries for dinner with her son. Teresa talks about being a single mother, and how it’s sometimes hard, but how it’s worth it in the end as long as her son grows up happy. She reminds him of May, and how strong May is, just like how strong this woman has to be for her son. Peter tells Teresa that she reminds him of his aunt, and she smiles warmly.

But when the police car is in Peter’s sights, he tells Teresa he must go, and she seems to understand. 

“Thank you for waiting with me, sir,” she waves him off as he turns to swing away, “And give your aunt a hug for me. You underestimate how much that means to strong women like us.”

Peter takes off into the sky again, and something in his gut wrenches mid swing. Peter has to clear his mind and focus on where his Senses are trying to take him. He passes many buildings and probably travels about five miles. He finds himself in a shopping center in another part of the city. He hears gunshots for a solid five seconds coming from an automatic gun, and whips his head towards the small diner on the corner of the shopping center. 

Guns were never a good sign, and he doesn’t have the most experience with them yet. He knows things can go quickly south when there’s guns involved; more casualties, more injuries. Despite his fear for what was to come, Peter knows the cops won’t be there as soon as he’s going to get there. He pulls out his phone and calls the police in case no one else has already, quickly saying that it was armed robbery before hanging up and attaching his webs to the building. More gunshots from inside the restaurant were heard, and Peter knew he wouldn’t have time to walk into the front door. Time was ticking, and Peter could tell from over a hundred yards away that there were already people getting hurt. The windows looking into the restaurant were over five feet tall and went around the entire front of the restaurant. 

Peter aimed feet first and crashed through the window, ending up landing on one of the assailants with a gun in his hands who was aiming to shoot someone. Before they both hit the ground, he heard the gunshot rip through his gun, and Peter whips his head towards the direction he knew it would land. He made eye contact with a younger waitress behind the counter, who screams in pain as she falls over. 

_“Shit,”_ Peter mutters as he webs the man he landed on. He renders the man immobile, with zero chance of escape. The other man aims his gun at him, and Peter could see his eyes dart around for a clue of what to do. He knew he was cornered. 

Peter didn’t give him the chance to do anything else as he shot webs at the gun and stuck it to the wall. He took a step forward and the man threw a punch at Peter. He catches the fist before he realizes, and twists the hand behind his back and pushes him onto the ground.

“Damn Spider,” the man mutters. Peter hits the man in the back of the neck with his free hand and knocks the man out. He webs this man’s limbs together, and stands back up off the ground to check for casualties. He knows the cops and ambulances will be here soon since he’s already called them, but Peter’s knowledge of first aid is still relatively limited, and he wouldn’t be able to help nearly as much as he’d wish. 

Around him, he sees multiple people bleeding, some people were unmoving with wide dead eyes on the ground. Peter’s stomach was flipping uncomfortably, and he had to control his breathing so he wouldn’t puke. He saw a man holding onto his wife, crying and shaking her. 

“Nora, you’ll be okay,” he heard the man whimpering as he pushed a stray piece of hair out of her face. Peter didn’t have the heart to tell him that her heartbeat was gone. With all of the 50 or so people inside, Peter couldn’t visually tell who was passed saving, with all of the people in here; versus who was still hanging on. He used his enhanced hearing to help him in this situation. 

He could hear 40 heartbeats. 33 heartbeats were pumping so fast and so hard and Peter knew to shuffle through them for the others. Three of them were safely asleep, and Peter knew two of them were the armed robbers. He looked to his left towards a small table in the back, where he sees a woman holding her son, but Peter can tell the mother is the one who was hurt, not the son, and he spots the blood stain in her right shoulder. She’s comforting her crying son, who must be 5 years old or younger. Peter hates that he knows the woman is going to be okay, but he has to turn away from her to focus on someone who needs help more than the mother.

“Ma’am, it’s going to be alright there’s help on the way,” He says to her as he looks around again for any others who was fatally hurt.

He looked in front of him where he heard three heartbeats by the counter. One was a heartbeat he ignored because this person was controlled by fear; the woman with short wavy hair in front of the register, then two behind the register. 

The woman with short hair looks into Peter’s eyes, “You help Beta,” She nods behind the counter, “I’ll help the others. Call for help.”

“I already did,” Peter mentions.

“Good.”

He hopes this woman is a doctor, because he didn’t get the chance to check the restaurant for the other couple people who needed help. The short haired woman passes him and jogs to someone behind Peter. She speaks to them soothingly, and takes it as a sign for him to start helping the person named “beta”.

He hops over the counter and sees another armed person lying on the floor and bleeding from his head. On the ground near him, is the waitress who Peter knew was shot from before. She’s crying, her eyes blurry with tears and her mouth coughing up blood. She must be “Beta”.

“Miss Beta, it’s going to be okay,” He takes her hand that was gripping her chest and places it gently on the ground; so he could assess the damage better. He sees all of the blood pooling and smearing on the floor around her, but he pinpoints where its coming from. His limited medical knowledge tells him to apply pressure, and he sees paper towels on a ledge and rips a whole bunch of them to start absorbing the blood and stop so much from coming out. 

He sees the fear in her eyes as they focus in and out of reality. Peter can’t imagine what she’s feeling; she’s around Peter’s age, from what he can tell. She’s very pretty, and Peter feels guilty for noticing this while she was dying. Her long brown hair is in a hairtie, but what comes out of it is sprawled messily on the floor, the tips of it soaking in the blood pooling around her. Peters gloves are tinged with it, and the smell of iron scares him.

Her heartbeat is slow faint and slow, he just wants to comfort her while she passes. 

The girl’s brown eyes are barely focused on Peter, but she looks towards him, and with as much emotion that fills her, she stutters, “I don’t want to die,” then her head lulls to the side.

It chills Peter to the bone. 

Peter senses the woman from before kneeling next to him. 

“Lift your hands,” She says with authority. Peter’s brows furrow underneath his mask, but he does as asked. 

There’s so much blood. He discards the soaked paper towels next to him, and rips off more, just in case. 

“Pick her up for a second,” The woman says, “I need to see if there’s an exit wound.”

Peter lifts an arm behind the girls back and lifts her, both Peter and the short haired woman noticing the blood pooling on her back. Her uniform shirt had a hole in it, Peter notices. He looks around and sees a small bullet covered in blood on the ground a foot away underneath the counter. 

“That’s good at least,” she sighs, and places her fingertips on Beta’s back. Her fingertips begin to glow a light blue color, and the color seems to fade into the girls body. The blood stops flowing out of her back, and the broken skin seals up, leaving a scar behind in its place.

“Wha-” Peter starts, 

“Healing magic,” the short haired woman supplies, “Unfortunately I’m not a real doctor, but I still can help the healing process along and heal specific types of wounds.”

Peters eyes widen, “That’s amazing.”

The woman freezes for a second, but continues with her magic, “Put her back down. Hey, when the paramedics come, are you going to leave?”

Peter hesitates. This is one of the most violent incidents he’s been involved in. He feels like he barely helped enough. 

So many people are hurt. 

So many people are _dead._

“...yes.”

It hurts him to say. But he knows no one can find out who he is. It sucks, but it’s how it has to be. 

“Take me with you.”

Peter looks at her funnily, which she wouldn’t be able to tell with the mask on, but it still confused him.

“Why?”

The woman’s eyes become sad, “Those people I helped, they’re gonna tell the cops about me, and then I’ll get caught up in all those hero laws. You’re lucky you have a mask and abilities to get away from law enforcement.”

Peter knows what it’s like to have to hide your identity, and he decides to help her. 

“Okay,” Peter agrees. The woman nods, and goes back to healing the waitress on the ground. 

After two more minutes, she breathes heavily, “I can’t help her anymore. I tried to speed along the blood replenishing process, but I can’t do it anymore.”

The woman wipes a hand on her glistening forehead. She’s expended her abilities, from what Peter can tell. 

The waitress’ heartbeat becomes less sporadic, but it’s still faint. He genuinely thinks she’ll be okay.

Peter’s ears hear the sirens from blocks away. 

“We’ve gotta go,” Peter taps her shoulder. The woman stands up; eyes still on the waitress, but it seems very reluctant. Peter can tell she doesn’t want to leave. 

Peter looks towards the kitchen and gazes farther back and spots the back door. 

“Alright,” she follows him towards the back. Peter silently wonders if the rest of the workers escaped except for the girl up front, Beta. 

They pass the grills and the shelves where they have plates and bowls. The dishwasher is by the door, and they walk right through it to the parking lot and dumpsters. Peter looks around and spots an alley that goes to another road, farther from the ambulances and cops that are coming.

“This way,” Peter says to her, and points towards the alley. The woman looks cautious of the idea, but she looks towards where they can hear the sirens, and she sighs in defeat. She starts running past Peter, and he takes it as a clue to run with her. 

While jogging next to her, he offers an idea. 

“Do you want me to swing us away? It would be faster,” he supplies. They make it to the other side of the alley, and stop for a second for her to reply. 

She’s breathing heavily, “Hell no. I can’t stand heights. Besides, I live a block away.” 

Peter was under the impression he’d be more help to her escape, but he can’t complain. 

“Do you want me to walk you back?” He tries.

She laughs humorlessly, “It’s alright, Spider-Boy. Honestly I thought we’d have more trouble getting out of there, like maybe more robbers, but I guess they were all there was. Thanks though.”

So that’s why she asked for help escaping. Peter was added security. 

“Ah, okay,” he says, “Well, I’m out of here. Good luck, uh,”

“Riley,” she supplies.

Peter’s about to swing away when Riley says something.

“Could you, uh, check on her for me?” Riley asks him, “I’m probably going to leave the city so no police or whatever find me, but it would be nice to know that someone’s keeping an eye on her while I can’t for a little while.”

Peter stumbles over his words, “Yeah, uh, I can, um, do that.”

Riley smiles at him.

“Thank you, just try not to freak her out or anything, please. She’s going to have a hard enough time getting over _this_ ,” she references. 

“I feel horrible,” Peter admits, “If only I arrived a few minutes earlier.”

“We can’t change the past, Spider-Boy.”

Peter gets defensive of this name, “I’m a man, not a boy.”

Riley looks unconvinced, “Okay, Spider- _Man._ ”

She waves him off and starts walking away, presumably towards her house. 

Peter latches his webs onto a building and flies to his own home. He felt like he could use some rest, too.


End file.
